


Ancient Beginning

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Original Character(s), Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clariel becomes Chlorr, once and for all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ancient Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lunarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunarium/gifts).



> Hope you like this, recip! Tried to fit in some of what you wrote about in your letter ;) Happy Yuletide!

In the darkness, the roar of the waterfall seemed louder. Through the thrown open window of the bedroom nothing could be seen of it, not even the faint white mist rising over the wall at the other edge of the garden that was so clear in daytime. The night outside was black as the thoughts circling through Belatiel’s mind; it rather suited his current mood.

Behind him, he heard Denima shift in her sleep. A moment later, her voice called to him quietly. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer; she came to it on her own soon enough. “The dream.” The sound of the bedclothes being pushed back, her bare feet slapping on the cold floor. Her hands came to rest on his shoulders. “You had it again?”

Belatiel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Near every night since we left the Glacier.”

“Bel…”

“I can’t keep closing my eyes, Denima. I was shown this for a reason; the Clayr Saw it for a reason. And I can’t help but think-”

“You did the right thing,” Denima broke in, as she had many times before.

“I _thought_ I did the right thing. Maybe I did the right thing at the time. Now…” Belatiel trailed off, looking helplessly out of the window.

“If she’s out there-”

“Then what she does is my responsibility,” Belatiel said heavily.

/

Out in the silence, she had space to breathe.

The way the wind whispered through the leaves was different here. She couldn’t explain how, or why, but she had been in the forest long enough to know the subtle differences between the sounds here and those she had left behind in Estwael.

_There are stories of a forest…wilder and more immense than anything in the Kingdom…_

Strange, that those words should echo in her mind today, so long after they had been spoken, so long after she had found the very forest in question.

Clariel heard the forest go silent long before the creature reached her. The birds always sang, here; it was only when they did not that you had cause to be afraid. But when one of her creatures came to her, slinking and skulking through the forest, there was no sound but the wind in the trees.

“Mistress,” the creature hissed, when it was close enough. A shifting thing of Free Magic, today it looked something like a large, elongated stoat with a long curled tail like a reptile, its back feet chicken-like claws and its eyes eerily human. Clariel recognised it as Naltaraiza.

“What is it?”

“Another tribe draws near, mistress. Lalrabh says they bring gifts.”

The tribes; small groups of humans struggling to survive in a land dominated by Free Magic beasts and sorcerers. Sometimes Clariel felt an odd flash of admiration for their tenaciousness.

Then, of course, she would remember that most of the rival sorcerers who challenged her came from these tribes.

“How close are they?” she asked curtly.

“Close, mistress, they will be here ere the sun sets.”

Clariel nodded. “Make ready for their arrival, then.”

Naltaraiza bowed low and disappeared into the brush; she and the others would prepare Clariel’s home to receive her visitors. For a moment, she allowed herself a smile. Even ordering them to perform such a simple task, she felt a momentary rush of triumph. Clariel, Free Magic sorcerer. It always had a nice ring to it when she said it in her mind, even if the last person to call her by that name was a thousand miles to the south.

The tribe, such as they were, arrived at dusk; two dozen men and women with weathered skin and wary eyes. They left their horses at the edge of her clearing and advanced in a single line, the tribe elder, the one they called an _atja_ , at the front.

She bowed low when she reached Clariel. “Honoured greetings, sorceress,” she muttered, her head still bent toward the ground.

Clariel stood outside the main door of her home, dressed in the long, two-coloured, embroidered robes of a Free Magic sorcerer. They would not have been her first choice of attire; they reminded her too much of the clothes her mother had forced on her, so long ago in Belisaere. She did not like to think of her mother if she could help it. But Lalrabh, the Free Magic creature among her followers who knew most about human culture, insisted that the tribes would not take her seriously if she did not look the part. There wasn’t much culture to be found here, it always said with a sly smile, but they managed a little.

“Greetings,” Clariel said, not returning the bow, as was customary for one of higher rank. “You come before me with respect. What is it you wish to ask?”

“Shelter in your glade for a few nights, sorceress,” the old woman said. “We bring furs and cloths, food and wine, to offer you. And news from the south and east, if you would hear it.”

Clariel nodded; this was an acceptable trade. “Set up your encampment, _atja_. You are my guest, under my protection.” She gave the old woman a precisely measured nod of the head, a gesture of respect for a vassal or dependent. “Bring me your offering when you are settled.” With that, she turned and entered the house, confident that they would have no trouble setting up camp. The tribes were very self-sufficient; it was something she liked about them.

She had harnessed the power of her Free Magic creatures to build the house. It wasn’t a large or especially luxurious dwelling; three simple, sparsely furnished rooms, with windows she left almost permanently open. The kitchen had a small wood fire and a table at which to eat, space to gut and skin animals she brought in from hunting, and an area to preserve their meat for the winter. The bathroom had little more than a depression in the floor which she filled for bathing; the sad truth was, despite all her power, neither she nor her followers had much idea how complicated plumbing worked. Her bedroom contained perhaps the most luxurious item in the house; a bed with a deep feather mattress. She had ensured the window was right beside her bed, so she could lie there and look out at the treetops, and above them, the stars.

Inside, Ezareth was at the table, reading. She looked human, save for her scaled hands, the horns that protruded from her forehead, and the large dragonfly-like wings on her back. “Another tribe, mistress?” she asked, her voice like the chiming of bells.

“Yes.”

“They bring something of importance,” Lalrabh said. He was hunched on his three-toed back feet, almost quivering with what Clariel could only assume was anticipation. He had a habit of knowing things before they happened, almost as if he had some twisted version of the Clayr’s Sight. He was like no other beast Clariel had ever encountered, and she was lucky to have kept him entrapped so long.

“What kind of a thing?” she asked, sitting at the table.

Lalrabh cocked his head. “I cannot tell the nature of it, mistress. I sense its importance, not its form.”

Clariel shrugged; that would have to be enough to be going on with. “They will come inside, in time. Do not be visible when they do.” Both nodded acquiescence.

The sun had set and campfires were burning in the clearing outside by the time the knock came on Clariel’s door. She opened it to find the _atja_ outside, accompanied by four men and a young, sharp-looking woman. “We bring our offering, mistress,” the _atja_ said, gesturing to the men, three of whom held sacks, while the fourth had a large bolt of cloth. “And this girl has travelled many miles, solitary, to the south,” she said, waving the girl forward. “I promised news. She brings it.”

Clariel looked at the girl a moment, and the girl stared back. There was something hard in her eyes, something challenging; Clariel had been regarded with suspicion and fear by other human beings for so long, it was refreshing to see a spark of courage. “There is a storage shed at the back of the house,” she said to the _atja_ , not taking her eyes off the girl. “Come inside,” she added, turning away and back into the house without waiting to see if the girl followed.

She did, though warily, like an animal venturing forth into a suspected trap. The Free Magic creatures were gone; it was she and Clariel alone who sat down at the table.

Clariel did not offer her refreshment; the difference in their rank prevented it. If she had had a human servant she could have commanded them to do so, but she did not. Perhaps she ought to think about acquiring one.

Instead, she looked at the girl long and hard for a moment before asking, “What is your name?”

“Sek,” the girl said, looking at her, but not into her eyes.

“Are you not afraid to be alone with a sorceress, Sek?”

“I’ve done worse. _Lema_.” She added the word as an afterthought; it was an honorary title of respect that meant something like ‘lady’.

“They tell me you travel far to the south, and all alone. You must fear nothing.”

“With respect, only a fool fears nothing.” Sek inclined her head. “But someone like you would know that.”

“I would.” Clariel sat back in her chair slightly. “Tell me what goes on to the south.”

Sek cleared her throat. “The harvest failed again on the steppe beyond the Rift; they say famine spreads from east to west, north to south. The warlords seek aid from the Kingdom, but rumours say the summer has not been bountiful there, either, and help is slow in coming. Also, rumours abound of a wizard from the Kingdom who has come beyond the Rift. They say he is powerful, and he is seeking something.”

Clariel shook her head. “He will not be powerful beyond the Rift. His magic will fade.” _Sorcerer_ was the title the tribes gave to one who practised Free Magic, while _wizard_ was what they called Charter mages. As far as Clariel could tell, the term could refer to either gender; _witch_ , or its equivalent in their language, referred to the members of the tribes who were responsible for healing, and had no association with magic.

Sek looked at her with interest. “I have never heard of that, _lema_. Are you sure?”

She could have told her about how she felt her own connection to the Charter fade, the further she walked from the Rift, but that would have risked revealing too much of her past. Instead, she said, “I know many things about the nature of magic, Sek. What else?”

Sek told her many stories; about the movements of other Free Magic sorcerers and political alliances or feuds within the tribes – many more of the latter, as was to be expected – and general observations of the forest. “And there is one more thing, _lema_ ,” she said, just as Clariel had been preparing to send her away. She said the words in a rush, which gave Clariel the impression that she had only just decided to tell her.

“What?” she said, trying to keep the demand out of her voice.

“I have seen something…a place…” Sek stopped and sighed, as if frustrated with herself. “It is hard to say, _lema_ ; I have been cursed, and can only speak so much. But I will try, as best I am able, if that is pleasing to you.”

Clariel leant forward. “Yes, I’m listening.”

“I was not always alone. I had a travelling companion; my cousin, Abrak. He and I were travelling together, alone, when we met a sorcerer.” Sek shuddered. “An evil man. A vicious brute. He swore us to his service and took us to a secret place, a place of which I cannot speak. There he showed us a treasure he wished to take, but he needed a sacrifice to break the seal.” Sek looked down. “He chose Abrak. When he had killed him, when his lifeblood was spread out on the stones, the seal broke and a terrible creature was set loose, a creature the sorcerer could not overcome. I hid and watched it tear him to pieces.” Her tone suggested she hadn’t watched with much remorse.

“But it didn’t kill you?” Clariel asked.

“It was intent on its freedom and I posed no threat, I suppose.” Sek shrugged. “Who can say? It charged past me and outside, and that was the last I saw of it. When I came from that place the enchantment on my tongue was still in place, so I could speak of it to no one; but now it has loosened enough for me to tell you this. And inside, what the sorcerer sought is still there, unprotected. Or it was, when I left.”

Clariel narrowed her eyes. “And what was inside?”

“It was a-” Sek stopped, scowling in frustration as the enchantment caused her tongue to roll up. When it loosened, she tried again; “They were instruments of-”

Clariel held up a hand. “The enchantment is still heavy upon you; do not try to speak of it again.” She smiled at Sek. “You do not tell me this because the _atja_ commanded you to give me news.”

“No. I told you because I can lead you there.”

/

The journey was long, and hard. Many times when Clariel laid down to sleep she would dream of the first days she had trekked through this wilderness, alone save for Marral and his often nonsensical rambling. Whatever spell Belatiel had put on him had worn off as they grew further and further from the lands where the Charter held sway, but Marral had stayed with her anyway, too afraid, Clariel was sure, to venture out into the wild on his own. It had been a sad and yet strangely freeing day when he died; her last link to the Kingdom, dead and gone.

Sek was an accomplished traveller in the wilderness. They moved with speed and ease; once Clariel was sure Sek could handle the appearance of her Free Magic followers, she allowed them to be visible before her. Sek didn’t bat an eyelash.

Perhaps a hundred miles to the southeast, they found the place. An underground vault of some kind, the entrance was a ramp that sloped down to the thick door, a rough earthen mound atop it proclaiming the size of the chamber inside. For a moment, as she walked down toward the door Clariel had a sudden and powerful flashback to the chamber under Mount Aunden, the hidden cache, the sword and the bells. It took her a moment to collect herself.

Sek, walking in front of her, turned and cocked her head inquisitively. “ _Lema_?”

“It’s nothing. Lead on.”

Inside, the chamber had walls and ceiling of rough earth, while the floor was paved with large slabs. Something that looked somewhere between a cage and a sarcophagus lay in the center of the floor, on its side, a large crack running up the side of it. It was made of a deep, black stone.

“The creature was inside,” Sek said, not taking another step further from the door. “The seal the sorcerer broke was on the lid.”

Now Clariel was looking for it, she could see dark stains on the paving slabs, and her stomach turned. She couldn’t imagine how Sek felt, seeing her cousin’s blood all over the floor.  

Sek pointed. “The- _instruments_ , are in there.”

Clariel walked forward, leaning down to look into the upturned sarcophagus-cage where Sek was pointing. There was something familiar inside. Trying not to step on the bloodstains, she bent over to peer closer.

Her heart jumped into her mouth. _Bells_.

Instruments. That was one way of describing them.

She heard Naltaraiza and Ezareth hiss in delight. “So much power in Death, mistress,” Lalrabh crooned.

So much power. Clariel’s fingers ached to reach out, to take up the bells, just as they had so long ago under Mount Aunden. The dark ebony handles of the bells seemed smooth and inviting, and it was as if she could hear them, ringing faintly, calling to her.

Before, she had turned away. But she was a different woman now; a woman who did not deny herself when she wanted something.

She reached out and took the bells, fastening the bandolier across her chest. All her Free Magic followers approved; she could feel their satisfaction in her mind.

Sek, standing behind her, bowed her head. “ _Necre_ ,” she said quietly.

Clariel frowned slightly; that was a word of the tribe language that she hadn’t heard before. “What does that mean?”

“It is…how to say…Do you speak the Kingdom language, _lema_?”

Clariel’s heart quickened, though she could not say why. “Yes.”

“It means the same as their word ‘necromancer’.”

For a moment, Clariel found it hard to breathe. _Necromancer_. It was foreign, but it felt…right.

 _It’s in your blood, mistress_ , Naltaraiza said, between their minds so Sek could not hear.

“Something comes!” Lalrabh hissed, turning his head.

“What?” Clariel demanded, her hand falling almost instinctually to rest on Saraneth.

“An adversary,” Lalrabh said cryptically, before darting out of the vault.

Clariel and Sek followed him quickly out into the fading sunlight. A light snow was beginning to fall; through the slowly floating flakes, Clariel could see a figure walking towards them through the trees. He was garbed in the style of the Kingdom, in a coat of gethre mail and a surcoat with a design she recognised.

Her stomach dropped to her knees. _How? Already? I have only held the bells for all of two minutes._

“Clariel!” a familiar voice called across the forest, and she felt her heart stop.

_How could it be? How could he be here?_

“I can’t let you take those bells,” said the man whose voice was Belatiel’s, but whose face was so _old_. Had so many years really passed? For a moment Clariel wondered how she looked to him, in her mask and her robes.

“How can you stop me?” she called back. “Your magic has no power here.”

“Not of it is lost,” he said, and slipped his own Saraneth out of its pouch.

“Bel-”

The sound of Saraneth cut her off, ringing strong across the space between them. But it was _wrong_ , somehow; like a soldier trying to walk off a wound, it wasn’t working properly.

“The bell is infused with Charter marks,” Naltaraiza hissed, coming to Clariel’s side. “They cannot sound at their full power here. But yours, mistress…”

 _Mine are creations of Free Magic only._ Acting purely on instinct, Clariel reached to her bandolier and unslung her Saraneth bell. Even across the distance between them she could see Belatiel’s eyes widen; he had time to shout, “Clariel, wait!” before she swung the bell.

 _Her_ Saraneth sounded loud and clear, its powerful tone ringing out with the pure and unadulterated force of her will, reverberating across the space towards Belatiel. It cut through the other Saraneth’s sounds like a knife, jarring them and breaking their power like snapping ice underfoot.

“Clariel!” Belatiel shouted, but she was lost in the power of the bell. She swung it again, smiling as the tone echoed around them, and watched her cousin sink to his knees.

 _Too much sound will draw attention, mistress,_ Ezareth warned.

Clariel bared her teeth. _Let them come. So much power I have, now._ But she caught the bell’s clapper and stilled it; Belatiel was under her sway now. She started forward through the light dusting of snow towards him.

Belatiel didn’t raise his head when she reached him. “I didn’t rescue you so you could turn into a Free Magic sorcerer,” he said quietly.

“Then why send me beyond the Rift?” Clariel asked scathingly. “There is nothing but Free Magic here. Without a tribe, I needed it to survive.” She shook her head. “If you didn’t want me meddling with magic, cousin, better to have sent me to Ancelstierre. I’ve heard there is no magic there.”

“A grievous oversight,” Belatiel muttered.

“Why did you come here?” Clariel demanded.

It was a long few moments before Belatiel spoke. “The Clayr Saw you, with the bells, standing there outside that cave. I kept dreaming about it. I wanted…I wanted to stop you.”

“You could have just left me alone,” Clariel snapped. “What does it matter whether I have bells out here? I have no intention of going back to the Kingdom.”

“Not yet,” Belatiel said quietly.

“Not ever.” Clariel took a step back. “But now you know I can’t let you go. I can’t look weak.”

Belatiel laughed, a hollow sound. “Of course.”

“Naltaraiza.” The creature stepped forward, reptilian tail transforming before Clariel’s eyes into something like a scorpion’s sting. She held it poised over Belatiel, the point aimed squarely at his neck.

For a moment, Clariel hesitated. “The Abhorsens?” she asked, very quietly.

Finally Belatiel looked up and met her eyes. It was a long, strained moment; Clariel didn’t know what he saw in her. She could see only mingled defeat and acceptance in him. “My daughter will take up the bells,” he said softly.

The tightness in Clariel’s chest eased; her conscience, what was left of it, was comforted. She gave Naltaraiza a curt nod. “Kill him.”

/

Later, after she’d made them open a hole in the hard earth for Belatiel’s body and close it up around him, when they were on their way back through the forest on the long trek to home, Sek sidled up to her and asked, “Where to now, _necre_?”

Ezareth looked at her sidelong. “The mistress wishes to go home, no?”

Clariel turned her face upward, feeling the falling snow settle softly on her skin. “There is so much left to see. So much left to discover.”

She felt a ripple of something like excitement go through her followers. “We’re leaving, mistress?” Naltaraiza asked.

“Winter is almost here. We shall stay at the house until spring. Then…” Clariel turned her head, looked northward. “I know what power is to be found to the south. But what of the north?”

As one, her followers turned and looked north, even Sek. “Many things,” one murmured.

“Strong things.”

“Ancient things.”

“Mysteries.”

“Good. Then we shall go north,” Clariel said decidedly.

“ _Necre_ …” Sek started, sounding as if she were about to venture a question.

“You are welcome to remain, Sek, for as long as I need you. I had been thinking of acquiring a human servant.”

Sek bowed low, in the customary manner. “Thank you, _necre_.”

When they made camp that evening Clariel sat with her bells, running her hands over them, learning them, taking care lest they sound. Lalrabh and Naltaraiza watched her with great interest.

Always, she came back to a symbol that had been etched on the center of the bandolier’s leather strap. “What is this?” she finally asked, directing the question at Lalrabh and Naltaraiza, but open to anyone’s answer.

Naltaraiza leant forward and studied the mark. “A rune of the old Free Magic tongue,” she pronounced, tilting her head from side to side as she studied it. “It is _Chlorr_ ; ‘the hungry’.”

“ _Chlorr_.” Clariel rolled the word around in her mouth. She liked the sound of it; unflinching, slightly rough.

_I will think of it, in time._

She had found it.

“A fitting name for bells, and a fitting name for a necromancer,” she said. “No longer nameless I; from now on, Chlorr is the name I take, and it is how you shall address me.”

The Free Magic creatures bowed low. “Yes, mistress.”

Sek bowed as well. “Yes, _necre_ ,” she murmured.

Above, a full moon was breaking out from behind the clouds. She shivered as the cold light hit her, remembering Belatiel’s voice calling her name through the still forest.

Her old name. Fitting, that it had died with him; her _true_ last connection to the Kingdom.

Clariel was gone; now Chlorr had taken her place.

She looked to the North, and she was hungry.


End file.
